The first pet that was mine was a gerbil. Mom allowed the older sister and I to get a pair. It became a disaster. They learned to get out of the cage, and we’d have to go on a hunt for them. They bred, and then ate their first batch of babies. The second batch survived, except for one. The sister accidentally sat on it when we were letting them run around on the bathroom floor for exercise. For some reason, both came down with some sort of bloody, open hole on their bellies and had to be euthanized by the vet. I had nightmares about them for years.

My first pet was one of those little turtles you kept in a round, shallow plastic container with an island sort of thing in the middle with green plastic palm tree sticking out of it. The turtles were eventually banned from sale in the U.S. because most of them turned out to be cute little bundles of salmonella. I’m surprised that so people my age survived our childhoods.

My first was a black and white cat named Harry S. Truman because we adopted him as a wild kitten. He was roaming the area behind the white house when Truman was in office. Of course, from then on, all other childhood pets were named accordingly, my dog Bessie, named for Missus Truman and assorted turtles, lizards, etc. were named Margaret to complete the family.

A whip tailscorpion . I really wanted a real scorpion by my mom was concerned about it stinging me and such so I ended up with this one. After I showed I could be responsible with it I ended up getting a emperor

@Coloma lol my sister used to have the hissing cockroaches as well. Pretty cool insects. One got out one time, that was fun to catch lol. Damn things were impossible to kill too, she’d like forget to feed them for weeks on end sometimes and they still trooped on.

I really wish there was somewhere around me still to buy cool insects but I dont know of anywhere, quite a shame. I want a bad ass centipede or something lol

@uberbatman You’re so lucky to have gotten at least some kind of scorpion thing. I desperately wanted a squirrel monkey when I was a kid and I never got any kind of monkey at all. I was mad at my parents for like a year. I thought they were being completely unreasonable. “And I can’t have a monkey because… because… why? You’re so mean!!!! You don’t love me at all!!! I hate you!!! If you loved me I could have a monkey!!!”